Morning Milky Way and Zodiacal Light

 At 5 am on Friday morning the sky was clear and calm.  The sky brightness to the east was measured as 21.45 mpsas, which is pretty good.  Jupiter is rising in the east and Orion is already high in the southeast.

Zodiacal Light and the winter Milky Way over Snowshoe Mountain

 This image was taken with an Olympus 8mm f/1.8 fisheye lens.  On the left, Jupiter is embedded in the triangular glow of Zodiacal light, which continues to arc upward from left to right.  On the right, the winter Milky Way arcs upward from right to left past Sirius and Orion.  The ridge line of Snowshoe Mountain is silhouetted against green and red airglow.

 This vertical fisheye image extends up past the zenith and into the northwest sky, just catching the eastern end of Cassiopeia.

 This image was obtained with a Laowa 7.5mm f/2 rectilinear lens and a Hoya Sparkle-6 filter.

The Moon fades, the Milky Way reappears

 After several days of deluge the sky was clear on Thursday night and last night.  There is now a window of darkness between the end of astronomical twilight and the rising of the waning Harvest Moon.

The last-quarter Harvest Moon was captured sinking behind the trees on the Bristol Head ridgeline yesterday afternoon:

 Later that evening (Friday) the Milky Way was once again an impressive sight:

 This photo was obtained with an OM-5II camera and an Olympus 8mm f/1.8 fisheye lens.  A digital low-pass filter was applied in post processing to suppress the faint stars.  This is a fisheye lens, so the view extends from the southern horizon up past the zenith and into the northern sky.

The next two images are also fisheye views with similar processing. 

view to the northwest

 

view to the north east

Three objects of interest are circled in the image above.  The planet Saturn is visible on the right.  In the middle, the galaxies M31 (Andromeda Galaxy, top) and M33 (Triangulum Galaxy, lower) are circled.  The Andromeda Galaxy is easily visible to the unaided eye with a dark sky like last night.  At a distance of 2.5 Million light years (Mly), it is the farthest easily seen object with the naked eye.  The Triangulum Galaxy is slightly farther away at a distance fo 2.8 Mly.  At magnitude 5.8, it is theoretically visible to the unaided eye under extremely dark conditions.  I tried, but my aging eyes could not pick it out last night.  The sky was nicely dark at the end of the observing session, with a measured sqml value of 21.62 mpsas in the eastern sky.

Harvest Moon ascending

 The weather gods were either distracted or being benevolent on Saturday night.  Clouds covered the western sky, but the view to the east stayed clear long enough to catch the rising Harvest Moon.

All pictures were with a 60mm f/6 refractor.

Anticipation....

 

There it is...

Through the trees

Harvest Moon, 99.7% full

Harvest Moon preview

The full Harvest Moon occurs today (Saturday) at 10:50 am MDT, but the prospects for viewing at moonrise this evening currently do not look good.  Last night there was a break in the clouds that allowed a preview as the Moon cleared the Snowshoe Mountain ridgeline at 7:45 pm.

These images were obtained with an Apertura 60mmED f/6 telescope.

 

25 September, 99.6% full

Autumnal Equinox

The Autumnal Equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator in the southward direction,  marks the end of summer and the beginning of autumn.   This year it occurred on Tuesday, 22 September. 

Here are two pictures taken on the day before the equinox (summer), and the day after (autumn).

On the road to Love Lake.  Monday.

 

Snow on the La Garitas. Wednesday morning

Observe the Moon night

 Saturday, 19 September, was "International Observe the Moon Night" for 2026.  This is an event conceived and promoted by NASA.  The date is chosen to occur close to the quarter-moon phase. 

After many days of rain, which raised the water flow in the Rio Grande by a factor of 6.7, Saturday morning started out with a rainbow and the promise of clearing skies.

Saturday morning double rainbow

 Venus is near peak brightness low in the eastern sky around sunset.  These images were obtained with a Sightron infini D50 refractor (50mm f/10.4) and a 1.5x MDB (Magic Dakin Barlow).  Obtaining a sharp image is challenging because of atmospheric turbulence at this low elevation.

Venus 30 min before sunset. sum of six images

Venus 15 min before sunset, single exposure (1/125 s, ISO 800)

Venus setting into the Bristol Head ridgeline 15 min after sunset

 

southern region

northern region

The Lagoon Nebula

 The Lagoon Nebula, Messier 8 or M8, is a bright emission nebula in the constellation Sagittarius.  It lies very near the core of the Milky Way in a region with several other bright nebulae such as the Trifid Nebula (M20), the Omega Nebula (M17), and the Eagle Nebula (M16).

These images were obtained last week with an Apertura 60mmED f/6 refractor and an Olympus E-M5iii camera.

 First, an unfiltered "natural color" image:

Lagoon Nebula (bottom) and Trifid Nebula (top)

The next image of the same region was obtained using an Optolong L-eNhance dual narrowband filter that selects the wavelengths for H-alpha, H-beta, and OIII emission.